Wednesday, March 25, 2009

You must try street parking on Roosevelt Island. It is a valuable* experience that will enlighten you on human suffering. In fact, I recommend it as a field trip for Moral Science class.

Who are these people? The ones who smell bad on Subways, the ones who steal quarters from a blind man's bowl, the ones who jump over the turnstile, ones that knock out the guitar from the musician playing at Penn, those who make illegal turns on red, those that leave dirt notes on my car, that knock over my garbage cans on the driveway, that leave a marinara mess in the elevator, ones that leave 0.3 mls of trypsin in a 5 ml tube, those that see 2 mls of pH 6.8 buffer and run as far as possible from that bottle to avoid making up more, that borrow my earrings and lose them, that judge my work timings... who are these people? Why are they in my life? Who let them in? Why do they try so hard to make my mornings bitter? Why do they always succeed? Where's the door?

Friday, March 13, 2009

It is a Friday evening and I am still working when someone walks past me to the elevator (obviously going home). They look at me and go "Have a good weekend, don't work too hard."What kind of a sick joke is that? Who says that to a grad student? Don't work too hard. Bah. Good weekend. Bah-er.

Nineteen years in any education system, even the Indian one, should give you some sense of what you like and what you don't in a profession. Though the Indian school system forces its choices on you, it prepares you for everything. Everything including mediocre colleges, dispassionate teachers, unethical attendants and unnecessary bureaucracy. I most certainly sympathize with those who aren't fortunate enough to be pursuing exactly what they want because of financial, academic or familial issues. But for those, who strive and push themselves (and others) hard in college to get an engineering degree and then treat it like a paper napkin while they tuck into money lined management (or other unrelated) jobs, I can only have contempt in its purest form.No offense to anyone who has found their true calling only after wasting four years in a degree you never were going to use. However, there are others who change their career path after prolonged sessions of "passionate" questioning, cross-questioning and cross-examining a professor in class over a simple amino-acid sequence to a financial fiasco. I am sure they have a fantastic excuse for it. But it is what it is, an excuse. It can never be a reason. Treason? Sure. Reason? Never.

There is some part of me that feels really bad for the banks that are falling all over each other, about talks of the glorious bronze Wall Street bull being replaced by a bear and for people expecting Obama to lift this sobbing child of an economy with his strong Democratic arms overnight. But for the cross-examining ship-jumpers, I have only one thing to say - Ha. Ha. (Like Nelson in the Simpsons)